Gone to Croatan

So--the very first colony in the New World chose to renounce its contract with Prospero (Dee/Raleigh/Empire) and go over to the Wild Men with Caliban. They dropped out. They became "Indians," "went native," opted for chaos over the appalling miseries of serfing for the plutocrats and intellectuals of London.

- Hakim Bey

(A huge asshole who wrote one great essay,

The Temporary Autonomous Zone.)

This blog is going to Croatan.

Instead of armchair-philosophizing about the specific world of Under-99 seat Theatre, I'm refocusing my efforts on the broad and vital universe of the variety arts.  There's a quote from Peter Brook that I've dog-eared the hell out of on this here blog.  Indulge me one more time:

It is always the popular theatre that saves the day. Through the ages it has taken many forms, and there is only one factor that they all have in common -- a roughness. Salt, sweat, noise, smell: the theatre that's not in a theatre, the theatre on carts, on wagons, on trestles, audiences standing, drinking, sitting round tables, audiences joining in, answering back: theatre in back rooms, upstairs rooms, barns; the one-night stands, the torn sheet pinned up across the hall, the battered screen to conceal the quick changes -- that one generic term, theatre, covers all this and the sparkling chandeliers too.

"Salt, sweat, noise, smell."

Truly theatrical, and truly mad.